paint you wings
by paradises
Summary: [High School, AU] She loses herself and then it's a free fall / or, how Victoire breaks apart and how you forget who helped you in the darkest of times until the fall resumes / VictoireTeddy • for HPFC.


******a/n: **For th**e ****All Sorts Of Love Competition, Angsty Love; The Failed Relationships Challenge; The OTP Challenge; The Angst Challenge of Epic Proportions, Free Ranged Chicken, as well. ****I apologize in advance for all the sp&g mistakes; plus, the ending's sucky and will probably makes your eyes burn.**** Please review, :) In some sort of strange way, the song Paint You Wings by All Time Low inspired this, so please check out that song!**

**paint you wings**  
VictoireTeddy

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I painted a picture of things I wanted the most  
To color in the darker side of all my brightest hopes  
But there was a monster standing where you should be  
So I'll paint you wings and I'll set you free  
— **Paint You Wings**, All Time Low

The first time that she notices something wrong is on a Sunday afternoon — the breeze is gently blowing in her loose beach waves, and god, Victoire doesn't even need anyone to tell her that she looks like a fucking supermodel. Nevertheless, through the thin rimmed Calvin Klein sunglasses, the blooming flowers look even more beautiful than her. Light chatter fills the nature preserve's allotted outdoor shelter and everybody's keeping their distance from her for some unknown reason. People known that she's probably some haughty teenage girl who's going to high school, and dresses up for the most simple of occasions but it's more than that.

She sees a hummingbird and laughs out loud, smiling a little to herself but nobody understands and she can hear the whispers about her getting louder; Victoire resists the urge to tell the gossiping parents to at least drown their sorrows in something else besides making their children's lives miserable, but then again, what better way for enjoying a party?

Most of these parties didn't even count as real ones, at least not to Victoire — mostly, there was loud music with the same chorus line and the same song repeating over and over again near the back, and the somewhat older young adults playing volleyball on one of the open fields. The fathers are all playing a gentle game of cricket, and Victoire pinches herself on the forehead, pressing her ring fingers to her temples to make sure that this isn't all some sort of stupid nightmare. She just sits on the same bench table, looking at how her violet fingernails curl around platinum blonde strands of hair which falls down evenly, but it's just never really been enough, has it?

Her parents tell her that she'll be here for the next four hours, and she should at least try to pretend as though she's having a good time; Victoire's modeled for years, now, but it's never been harder than this to muster the fake blinding smiles, and negotiate her way out of everything with charisma which just isn't coming.

Nevertheless, she walks off, down the paved road and examines everything around her like she's never been here before; sure, it's a forest preserve and as she extends her cell phone up a tree no connection comes and she's never felt more alone though chatter around her constantly reminds Victoire that there are people that she could perhaps win over but the effort of the compulsion doesn't seem useful in the moment. The only thing that catches her short attention span are the children playing basketball in an abandoned court, their parents nowhere to be found.

Some of them are wearing long baggy shorts which extend past their knees and most have been hand me downs, with bright, neon shirts with blaring messages and letters on them; there's sweat dripping down their faces and changing their light grey shirts to a much murkier color but the smiles on their face are genuine. It's something that she doesn't have, and Victoire wants everything but she can't everything because that wouldn't be fair, now would it?

One of the boys notices her, and asks her if she wants to play but Victorie's not even sure what the rules are of basketball, but only knows one rule — to win a game, you must charm over your opponents, and though Victoire hasn't held a basketball since the first grade in which her parents had excused her out of physical education, she's confident that she'll be able to win this game without any foul or harm done, at least to herself. "Hello, boys," she drawls out, with a smug grin played out.

She grabs the ball quickly and starts running through the hedges, and it's the most fun that she's had in ages and Victoire actually feels something _real _whether it's the slight trickle of sweat running down her back or the enjoyment of being wild, not contained by the rules previously set. It's then when she looks over the hedges, and sees the fact that none of the boys _are _chasing her, and instead resume some sweaty ball game with more uglier females; life seriously isn't fair.

Dinner time isn't ever better as her mother reprimands her for acting so haughty and stuck-up —_ what would the other parents think_ — because it's never really been about Victoire, always been about making good first impressions and making sure that connections were kept for later arranged marriages, kept in mind.

.

All Victoire wants to do is forget; paper fingers claw at a wispy scalp in vain effort. It's been three years since the the news have come in the mail, the recruitment for a war in Afghanistan and she vaguely remembers the fact that her dad wasn't supposed to go, but he did anyway, for the glory and honor; but the horror and the blood is still in the forefront of her brain, mixed in with the Law of Thermodynamics and Steinbeck quotes, climbing upon each other until she's drowning, six feet under. Wispy eyelashes bat away the memories, but they are absorbed into eyelids, which will not forget every time that she could have said goodbye.

It's not like she's running a marathon, but her breath is winded and she can't find a way to be able to stop this secrets, all of these secrets that are drowning her six feet under. It's almost over though; that much, she knows, and that if she just continues this mess, she'll be free, at the finish line, at least. Once she finishes this, at the gates, everything will be perfect and in a way, Victoire hopes that it will be like life was before the death — except she knows deep down, _it'll never be the same, it'll never be the same —_ It's the last day when she wonders if it's worth it; after all these weeks and months, she's still as alone as she was at the start. The road is getting tougher, the incline a higher steep, and suddenly to move a single step, it's impossible. Just one night, only one night, she takes a break, walking on the wild side of life.

It was already freshmen year, the most important one in order to get decent first impressions and into all the exclusive societies, when her dad died —it was expected, _really_. The therapists, all six of them who she kept on biting and kicking, screaming all the way down, tell her that it's okay to feel pain and misery but it's been years and she needs to find a way to let go, and to move on with a messed up life.

(Now, the situation's just to much worse because she finds herself twitching, moving towards the edge of insanity and she's ready, waiting for when the time will come for that fall.)

Sometimes, when she's alone in her bedroom, there's nobody there to watch her shatter into haphazard pieces and Victoire wraps tightly around her a wool blanket, devouring vegetable crackers and jellybeans, the emptiness of the screen taunting her to _typetypeype _but all she ends up doing, at the end, is _crycrycry _until one of the children downstairs tells her to shut the hell up, so she goes into her bathroom, and cries some more.

So, for now, she manages to live in the cycle —cry, eat, cry, eat some more, study—, yearning for a full mind and a happy soul.

.

Senior year is the first time when she has a breakdown in public.

She's standing near one of the oak trees at the outskirts of the high school campus, munching quietly on some soggy peaches which she later disposes, along with the remainders of a vegetable smoothie Victoire was never really quite capable of digesting for a brain snack. It's almost as if she's losing control of herself, and then gaining it back, all with no motive in life except to be able to continue without falling into pieces but deep down, she knows that it's much too late for that.

There's somebody standing in her spot and in a whirlwind of emotions, something comes rushing forward to the surfaces and it takes all the control that she has left not to punch the person senseless; it's a boy named Teddy Lupin, and he's also a senior but he's taken her spot; Victoire can see her initials carved into the tree.

"Excuse me," she taps her foot, impatiently, extending one arched ballet flat above the other, "—you're in my spot." Teddy doesn't even bother to respond to her remark and the control's fading away quickly enough, and tears start spilling out of her eyes until Victoire can't control anything anymore, and starts bursting into tears and he's just standing on the side because there's nothing else to do with a girl and heartbreak, and he slowly walks away; she cries some more.

.

Victoire lies upon the floor, staring upon the starry sky, the meteors and the comets moving at astronomical speeds, magic that could only come from perfection; tonight, though, they have all been blown out. There is this empty ache, the silence, the never-ending silence, that threatens to destroy every thought, every hope left in this desolate city.

Her heart is this glass thing, and it's shattering into pieces, the blood spilling across the tainted black tiles, as he tries frantically to cover up all the traces, 'cause he's given up long back of returning everything where it's supposed to be. A few months later, she shows up back at his doorstep, hurling, spouted raindrops across her face, because she never cries, and of course, he takes her back in, promising to be better even though he barely remembers the blond haired girl.

Teddy doesn't even know what this has come to anymore; the two of them started out as friends and as cliché as it may seem, he feels as though that they should probably be something more, though he knows that if he tells her that, their friendship would be ruined. She is not allowed to date any boy who is not preferred by her parents as excessively rich and well-educated, which of the two qualifications, Teddy are neither. It is not now, though, that Teddy will give up, however, that will just not be done.

He decides that, tonight he will tell her — that's when she asks you the question, though. _Do you think that it's strange that we're best friends, but not in love with each other? _she asks.

_It just makes it better, _you reply. After all, your feelings would not have been returned. Still, he knows that he's no good for her. If he knew that it would have never worked out, he shouldn't have this Victoire-sized hole in himself and decides the rules don't apply.

Weeks later, Teddy sees her crying at the corner of the street, wearing the same golden dress and matching mask that she had donned three hours earlier, spinning around the room as though she was part of the crowd, like she belonged, nothing but energetic smiles and happiness. He tells her one night that they belong with each other, she only kisses her boyfriend even fiercer, twirling a brown ringlet around her hair as she smiles innocently at him, throwing the roses, their roses, onto the floor before she leaves.

He's caressing her chin as though he is the artist, and she is his sculpture, but he's just sculpted her out of sticks and stones, and sooner or later, she's going to fall down. There's a new flavor of boy toy around her arm and it's almost as if they didn't have the connection that they used to have, but Teddy still hopes that things could go back to the way that they were, but that was Victoire at her worst time, and he prepares himself for another fall because this is her at her best, but the cycle will keep on going until the very last moments.

Everything's completely messed up, and there's no way of getting her back, but maybe this was for the best. After all, they say that if you truly love someone, you should let them go — but he's _tired _of letting her go and Victoire never coming back.

.

Sometimes, Victoire perches upon the rooftop and tastes the cold metal air, and wonders if she could paint herself a pair of feeble wings in fly away. One day, she realizes that she's not worth saving and paints herself wings and flies away off into the sunset, already gone before the sickening crash onto cold pavement is heard.

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please review?


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